President
Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was at the center
of a bombshell New York Times report published Sunday that said
he hand-delivered a "peace" plan for Russia and Ukraine to former
national security adviser Michael Flynn before Flynn was asked to
resign.

The plan - which the Times said was "pushed" by Cohen,
businessman Felix Sater, and Ukrainian lawmaker Andreii Artemenko
- involved lifting sanctions on Russia in return for Moscow
withdrawing its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern
Ukraine. It would also allow Russia to maintain control over
Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

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Hours after the Times story was published, however, Cohen
told The Washington Post that he had never delivered the
peace plan to Flynn nor discussed it with anyone in the White
House.

In an interview with the Post, Cohen corroborated the
Times' report that he had met with Sater and Artemenko in a
hotel lobby on Park Avenue in Manhattan in late January to
discuss the proposal. He said the meeting lasted fewer than 15
minutes and acknowledged that he left with the plan in
hand.

He "emphatically" denied, however, "discussing this
topic or delivering any documents to the White House
and/or General Flynn," adding that he told Artemenko that he
could "send the proposal to Flynn himself by writing him at 1600
Pennsylvania Ave," the Post reported.

Cohen shifted his story again on Monday, telling Business Insider
in a series of text messages that he denies "even knowing what
the plan is."

However, he later acknowledged that he met with Artemenko in New
York for "under 10 minutes" to discuss a proposal Artemenko
said "was acknowledged by Russian authorities that would create
world peace."

"My response was, 'Who doesn't want world peace?'" Cohen
said.

source

Stephanie Keith/Reuters

A New York Times spokesperson pointed Business Insider to a
statement the newspaper had given Sunday: "Mr. Cohen told
The Times in no uncertain terms that he delivered the Ukraine
proposal to Michael Flynn's office at the White House. Mr. Sater
told the Times that Mr. Cohen had told him the same thing."

Sater, a businessman of Russian descent who has boasted of
his "relationship with Trump,"
told the Post last May that he "handled all of the
negotiations" for the Trump Organization's dealings in Russia in
the mid-2000s. Trump
has distanced himself from Sater, insisting in sworn
testimony as part of a 2013 lawsuit that "if [Sater] were
sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn't know what he
looked like."

Sater told the Post that he thought Cohen was going to
deliver the plan to Flynn, but that Cohen had to wait because
Flynn was in the middle of a Russia-related firestorm.
Cohen, for his part, was named as a "liaison" between Trump
and the Kremlin in the explosive,
unsubstantiated dossier presented by top US
intelligence officials to Trump and senior lawmakers last
month.

Sater was "not practicing diplomacy" in pushing the
plan, which he entertained only because he "wanted to promote
peace," he
told Fox News on Monday. He did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii V. Artemenko, who
met with Trump's campaign team during the election, was
also involved in drafting the proposal. Artemenko told the Times
he had evidence ofUkrainian President Petro
Poroshenko's corruption that could lead to his ouster.

Poroshenko has been locked in a war with pro-Russia
separatists in eastern Ukraine since he took power in 2014. He is
considered more friendly to the West than his ousted predecessor,
Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych's political rise was heavily aided
by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who worked as an
adviser on Yanukovych's presidential campaign.

Cohen, for his part, called the reporting surrounding the meeting
"#fakenews." He said he stands by his story that he never did
anything with the plan.

"Change your fake story or lose my number," Cohen said. "I
have no time for Trump haters."